SARAH VINE: Once I'd have voted Remain. Now I'd rather burn my ballot paper than back those bullies and scaremongers

Had you asked me this time last year whether I would vote In or Out in a EU referendum, I’d have definitely been for In.

Now, I shall be voting Out — and not just out of solidarity with my husband Michael Gove, the Justice Secretary and Leave campaigner. But because, after the way the Remain camp has behaved over the past few weeks, I’d sooner set fire to my ballot paper than give my backing to such a bunch of bullies.

This saddens me, because if anyone should be voting Remain, it’s me.

I shall be voting Out, says Sarah Vine — and not just out of solidarity with my husband Michael Gove, the Justice Secretary and Leave campaigner

I’m a child of Europe. Born in Wales, I lived briefly in England before my parents upped sticks and emigrated to Italy in the early Seventies.

I went from a semi in Stourbridge to the heat of the Roman hills. I swapped fish fingers for spaghetti, got sunburn on my shoulders and went to school with dark-eyed Italian children.

I can’t name my English kings, but I can recite most of the Popes; I don’t know much about Shakespeare, but I can wax lyrical about Dante.

Pounds and ounces, feet and inches mean nothing to me. The only measurements I understand are metric.

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I speak four languages and my family is scattered across Europe. I’m the only one to have returned permanently to Britain.

But even now, 30-odd years after I came back, I still occasionally feel a foreigner in the land of my birth.

It’s not easy fitting into British culture, you see. The Brits have a strong sense of national pride, characteristic of a country that hasn’t suffered a military invasion for nearly 1,000 years.

For someone unfamiliar with their customs it can be a confusing, frightening place. The people of these islands can be querulous, stubborn, shouty.

And, like all island nations, they can be distrustful of foreigners — a fact that I discovered to my own cost when I first came back to live here, British by birth though Italian in culture.

But once you get to know them a bit — and they you — the British are the most welcoming of people. It’s then that the true national character emerges: passionate, creative, generous, industrious, resourceful and, it is widely acknowledged, possessed of a cracking sense of humour.

After the way the Remain camp has behaved over the past few weeks, I’d sooner set fire to my ballot paper than give my backing to such a bunch of bullies, says Vine

Only in Britain could something as brilliant as the BBC exist. Or as quirky as Monty Python, or as impossibly eccentric as the State Opening of Parliament.

Crucially, Britain also has one of the least corrupt and most decent-minded democracies in the world. It was this, I think, that made me want to return here. The sense of order, the effectiveness of our public services.

In particular, the respect for the opinions of others, and a fundamental sense of fair play, even between those on opposing sides.

If we stay, Goldman Sachs and the rich and powerful will quaff Dom Perignon over the defeat of honest taxpayers who they hold in disdain and who fund the whole rotten gravy train.

This seemed to me to run through British society like the lettering on a stick of rock. It was there as much in the corridors of power as it was on the daily commute.

The civility of the people waiting patiently in line at the bank. The daily miracle of seeing queues of traffic next to empty bus lanes — a sight so incomprehensible to my inner Italian it still makes me smile in amazement.

It was all so different from Italy, where despite the wild, romantic beauty of it all, everything was so random, nothing worked and nothing was straightforward.

Each year, school would break up early, lessons cut short, because of another collapsed government. Politicians were forever being brought down by huge corruption scandals. Roads remained half-built, houses sprung up like jagged teeth where they ought not to be. Nothing mattered except who you knew and how much you could pay them. Everyone had a price, and if they didn’t they’d probably end up in a coffin.

The power was in the hands of a ruthless, privileged few who exercised their will with a flagrant disregard for the law or the public.

My Celtic blood instinctively drew me back to Britain, to the neat suburban houses with their tidy front gardens, to the clean streets and fully functioning postal system.

To me, it seemed like a miracle of quietly rigorous organisation. A truly meritocratic society where someone like me, an inconsequential nobody who knew no one important and hadn’t much to offer save enthusiasm and a willingness to work hard, could maybe, one day, be someone.

At first I was very worried when my husband Michael Gove declared forLeave. But now I’m not only glad of it, I’m also immensely proud of him, Vine writes

It still is. And I think that, really, is at the heart of our problems with Brussels. Because our way of doing things, the British way, doesn’t chime with the culture of stitch-ups and murky back-room deals that characterises the way the EU is run.

Ours is an unequal alliance with Brussels. It’s not that we don’t know how to play the game; it’s that we don’t even know there is a game — let alone understand the rules of engagement.

Our system of open and honest government has little currency in Europe; indeed, if anything, it’s a handicap.

Free vote? Don't make me laugh. Not since the Borgias have so many thumbs been screwed.

Even so, I still thought, does it really matter so much? The EU, I reasoned, wasn’t perfect; but it wasn’t actually malevolent either. More a case of benign incompetence, really.

I tried to persuade my husband to see my point of view. I tried, like any good Italian, to get him to put political expediency ahead of principle and pursue the path of least resistance.

Don’t rock the boat, I said, do as you’re told.

He listened politely and with due consideration, as he always does — and then did what I always knew he would: declared for Leave.

At first I was very worried. But now I’m not only glad of it, I’m also immensely proud of him.

Not just because had he silenced his own principles and chosen the path of least political resistance he would have become a hollow man.

But because had he not decided to follow his heart over Europe, I would never have grasped quite to what extent the corroded political culture of the EU has infected Britain’s own elites.

Or the lengths to which they will go to hold onto power.

Because this referendum campaign has, without question, been an exercise in those with power, wealth and influence telling the rest of us to know our place.

The EU suits the elites and the establishment.

'This referendum campaign has, without question, been an exercise in those with power, wealth and influence telling the rest of us to know our place'

The partners at Goldman Sachs who made billions from the catastrophe of getting Greece into the euro, the Masters of the Universe at Morgan Stanley who lobby Brussels to get their own way, the company chief execs who enjoy million-pound pay-outs while their workers see their wages stagnate because of cheap immigrant labour — they all do very nicely out of the EU.

Which is why they’ve pumped so much money into the campaign to frighten the British people out of their wits and get them to Remain.

If Michael hadn’t taken this stance, I’d never have fully realised the lengths to which the Establishment will go to protect their own interests.

Leave campaigners have been compared to crocodiles, pythons and wolves, and believe you me, that’s the least of it.

The EU suits fat cat bosses who make millions as workers' wages stagnate because of immigration.

Michael hasn’t had to put up with half the stuff flung at Boris Johnson. You don’t need to be a fan of Boris — in fact, I barely know the man —to feel uncomfortable at the way he’s been personally targeted.

The message has been clear — dare to step out of line and follow your heart and we will paint your soul in the blackest of shades. A free vote? Don’t make me laugh. Not since there was a Borgia Pope at the Vatican have so many thumbs been so comprehensively screwed.

And for what? For daring to question the decades of mission creep that have allowed a trading zone to morph into an unelected federalist superstate.

But while all this bullying and scaremongering has been designed to keep heads below parapets, it had the opposite effect on me.

There is something about the patronising, hectoring, de haut en bas manner of the Remain campaign that has brought out the revolutionary in me.

As one Mail reader put it so succinctly in one of the countless passionate emails I have received on the subject: if we don’t vote the way they want us to, we are all ‘intolerant, small-minded, unpatriotic, illiberal, backward-looking, divisive, disengaged, uncaring, cold, lacking confidence, pessimistic, maudlin, suspicious, stupid’ and even, she added in astonishment, ‘immoral parents and grandparents’.

In the end, the argument on the Remain side has boiled down to two things: First, anyone who wants to control migration is at best an xenophobe, at worst a racist.

In the end, the argument on the Remain side has boiled down to two things: First, anyone who wants to control migration is at best an xenophobe, at worst a racist. Farage hasn't helped, Vine concedes

And in that sense their tactic has worked: no one wants to be thought of in that way, and, of course, Nigel Farage and his ill-judged poster hasn’t helped.

Second, that we are in so deep in Europe we can’t pull out. That we are so defeated by Brussels there’s hardly any point fighting any more.

That is tantamount to saying to a battered wife: ‘Well, he’s knocked all your teeth out now: you might as well stick with him because no one’s going to want you looking like that.’

And so we find ourselves in the curious position of being a nation whose leaders are busily talking it down, trying to reduce confidence and morale to rock bottom, to scare the living daylights out of everyone so that, tomorrow, we’ll all be too timid to question the status quo.

Maybe they’re right that Britain will face tough times in the future if we decide to leave. But it wouldn’t be the first time, and it certainly won’t be the last.

Truth is, no one really has a clue what will happen if Brexit wins.

But I know what will happen if we Remain.

The rich, the powerful and the vested interests will heave a huge sigh of relief and raise a glass of Dom Perignon to the status quo and the defeat of the people they hold in disdain: those whose hard work and taxes continue to support this unelected gravy train.

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SARAH VINE: Once I'd have voted Remain. Now I'd rather burn my ballot paper than back those bullies and scaremongers